The Field of the Invention
This invention relates to treatment of skin defects, and in particular to control and delivery of treatment substances to a dressing on a skin defect.
The Background Art
Skin defects may be inflicted by people, machines, tools, vehicles, animals, plants, the environment, and many other factors. Likewise, pressure, ailments, infections, and disease may create sores, open wounds, and other skin defects. Skin defects may be treated by a variety of physical processes, materials, conditions, controls, and the like, each based on a particular theory, experiment, regimen, or other basis of justification. Meanwhile, skin defects may be characterized by their significance or seriousness, as well as their nature, their susceptibility to treatment, or the like. Skin defects maybe defined as wounds, incisions, or an injury to the body (as from trauma, pathology, or surgery) that typically involves laceration or breaking of a membrane (as the skin or mucous membrane) and usually damage to underlying tissues. Furthermore a wounds or skin defect may be characterized as minor, superficial, major, traumatic, acute, chronic, fatal, or the like.
Skin defects may require isolation from an environment, exposure to a particular environment, treatment by exposure to a medicament, covering, uncovering, and so forth. One area of continuing interest is the treatment of skin defects by applying a dressing. Typically, treatment may include some type of anti-sepsis process. After application of medicament such as an antiseptic, antibiotic, or the like in tincture or ointment form, a bandage or other covering may be applied to control or limit access to the skin defects by environmental agents (e.g. air, dirt, touching, etc.).
In treating skin defects, applying a medicament may only solve part of the problem. Changing a dressing, replenishing a quantity or concentration of a medicament, controlling the access, contact, and concentration of an active ingredient applied to skin defects, and verification of the foregoing are typically difficult to do. Application of a constant or even reliable or consistent concentration of a medicament is difficult to accomplish, even for a regularly attended patient.
For example, application of a salve, ointment, cream, irrigation, tincture, or the like occurs at a point in time. The dressing itself may soak up the medicament fluid, removing the contact with the skin defects. Drying of a carrier portion of a medicament fluid may inhibit chemical activity of an active ingredient by removing the necessary transport fluid required for migration, diffusion, or the like. Drying of tissues, blood, or serum may inhibit the action or effectiveness of an active ingredient, and may even block access by an active ingredient to underlying skin defect. Thus, finding a proper delivery mechanism to consistently, regularly, or constantly apply the right amount of a therapeutically effective active ingredient may be problematic in many instances.
Once a medicament fluid is applied as a salve, liquid, tincture, aspersion, cream, irrigation, or the like, the problem of the concentration of the active ingredient may actually render the application ineffective relatively quickly. Many medicaments, once applied, have a rapidly decaying, uncontrolled, or ineffective concentration. Subsequently the concentration of an active ingredient in the bulk of a medicament fluid is necessarily much higher than the concentration migrating to the affected skin defect area. Thus the delivered concentration may become inappropriate. Some dressings e.g. impregnated dressings deliver either below the therapeutic range or above it causing inadequate treatment or side effects and in the case of antibiotics possible resistance.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method and system for consistent delivery over time of a specific volume, specific concentration and/or therapeutically effective concentration of an active ingredient of a beneficial fluid to the site of skin defect. Also desirable would be supplying a specific volume, specific concentration and/or therapeutically effective concentration of a fresh active ingredient in a programmable manner to be within the therapeutic window to eliminate effects due to under delivery or over delivery. Also desirable is a method for maintaining a transport fluid (e.g. carrier, moisture, tissue moisture, etc.) available to support delivery of the active ingredient to the skin defect. It would be an advance in the art to provide a system and method to maintain a prescribed transport path, and effective concentration of fresh active ingredient to the site of the skin defect.